Steampunkette

Holy shit, dude. I'm... I just don't get how you are having such a hard time understanding this. I -get- your perspective. I'm saying that it is self-limiting. Try to grasp mine. Don't try to make up your own version of mine with a bunch of rules about how characters would 'need to be limited' or whatever. Read what I'm writing, right now, take it in, and try to understand it. In a Perfect CoH2 there would be different Narrative Scales. Some stories would be 'Cosmic' or 'World Class Heroism' at level 1. Some would be Street or Neighborhood level stories at level 50. Maybe you pick how you interact with different Glowies in missions based on a selection of different options, wouldn't -that- be cool? Maybe your character isn't a bomb-defusing expert so you have them cover their eyes with one hand and cut a wire at random. (Heck, if we wanna go cartoony maybe there's a chance that animation doesn't work -right- and your character gets zapped but the bomb is still defused. A Hyuck!) Maybe in a level 1 mission you fight aliens. And your Superstrong Brute character Mr. Winvincible interacts with the mission glowie bomb by HURLING IT INTO THE SUN instead of trying to defuse it. Or you have to fight a bunch of pylons around a super-reactor in a starship to keep it from having enough speed to obliterate planet Earth when it crash-lands. But for every other function it's still just another door mission for a level 1 character. The NPCs hit you as level 1 characters. You hit them as a level 1 character. You know, like the Tutorial/Starting Area of DCUO. Meanwhile over here some dude in a trenchcoat is being as Rorshach as he can manage and fighting some Mafia Thugs in a different door mission where they still disarm the bomb instead of chucking it into the sun or whatever. Still level 1. Just a different narrative scale. 20 levels later. Mr. Winvincible is still chucking bombs into the sun and stopping runaway trains by standing in front of them and gritting his teeth really hard as the "Glowie Interaction" for that mission. While Rorshabee's player is instead flipping the switch to force the train's brakes to go into "Magnetic Lock" mode or something else to stop them. At level 21 they decide to have a fight. They're both level 21 heroes and they hit each other like it. There's no mechanical difference between the character's power levels because it's a game and there's no Narrative Scale in PvP. Batman v Superman all over again. In another 10 levels they're friends and sometimes they team together. Rorschabee goes to space to help Mr. Winvincible fight the Rikti off. (They're a stronger NPC Group, narratively, than the level 1 alien jerks that Winvincible fought 30 levels ago) Rorshabee disarms half the bombs the Rikti are planning to drop on Paragon while Mr. Winvincible flings the other half into the sun. Yeah. It doesn't make sense that Rorschabee doesn't get completely and utterly pasted by the first Rikti Rifle Blast that hits him. Batman survives that kinda shit too, though, so we apply some Handwavium. Maybe they missed. Maybe he has Kreeptonight in his belt which makes the blast not destroy him. At some point the narrative -has- to bend to the gameplay, but it doesn't need to invariably bend to the gameplay all the time forever. At level 50, Rorshabee and Winvincible PvP again. They're both level 50 characters. They hit each other like level 50 characters. The PvP still has no narrative because it isn't a story it's two people beating each other and telling whatever story they want about it. Afterward Mr. Winvincible joins Rorshabee to help Back Alley Brawler (He's in a wheelchair, 80, and basically Oracle at this point) Regulate the drugs in Kings Row by flinging the vats of Superadine into the sun and punching some Skulls with all his cool superpowers but for handwavium's sake he's pulling his punches so as not to paste the street thugs 'cause he's a hero and not a jerk. Again, sometimes gameplay is more important than narrative but it doesn't have to be the winner of every single fight. You get all the benefits of a game in which characters level up. You get to be a "World Class Hero" from level 1. You get to be a "Street Level Hero" at level 50. You can even start out as a 'Street Level Hero' who throws Bombs into the Sun and eventually decides to start doing some of the World Class Hero content when you get to 20 and -only- World Class Content after you hit 35. The players who want Street Heroes are happy. The players who want World Class heroes are happy. The players who want to start out as one scale and 'Work their way Up' to a higher scale are happy. Do you now understand my perspective that you can tell much more "Comic Relevant" stories in an MMO by letting the Narrative Scale exist separate from your character's level? And yeah. There's no plausible explanation why the Snail one-shots people. No plausible explanation why the Tigers in Pandaria are -massively- stronger than the Tigers in Stranglethorn, either. But people tend to laugh about it and accept that it's just a matter of Game Mechanics trumping narrative 'cause it happens, -sometimes-. But it doesn't have to happen -all- the time. It doesn't have to be the default. That's all I'm saying.

On the note of "Levels have to mean you're big and powerful!" I played Mists of Pandaria from release (I had a Warlock Tank with Dark Apotheosis because that's when WoW was still trying some cool concepts like cloth-tanking) and there's an enemy in one of the -hallways- of a raid. Like before you get anywhere -near- the next boss. This enemy -always- one-shotted anyone it caught. Tank with all your buffs on? Instant-Kill. Didn't matter what your hit points were it literally has an attack that instantly kills you. Even now, after Warlords of Draenor, Legion, and Battle For Azeroth, those enemies will one-shot you. It was a running gag that whenever I got to that hallway I'd make a big speech in the raid group: "Heroes of Azeroth! You have battled against the Black Dragonflight and slain Onyxia. You turned aside the Burning Legion and defeated Kil'jaeden before imprisoning Illidan Stormrage. You've even battled the Lich King himself and slain the God of Death Yogg Saron. And in recent months you battled Deathwing and the Old Gods which controlled him. Now, now you face your most dangerous foe!" "This Snail!" That's right. The above NPC instantly kills you. Doesn't matter how powerful you are. A giant Snail (Tauren are about as tall as the stone block behind it) instantly kills you. Because Levels are only as important to the Narrative as the writer decides they are.

Signal to Noise happens when you've got multiple conversations going on over one topic. And that's how levels work in THAT GAME. That's not how levels 'have to' work. It being Common doesn't mean it's Needed. Look at Minecraft with it's levels that don't function to separate players from given content. That game uses gear to determine what kind of content you can handle. Much like Conan Exiles. Games that use levels or whatever tend to increase a character's narrative power, sure, but even in WoW you're still fighting the 'Local Wildlife' of whatever new continent gets opened up and there's no sane reason for Bears in Northrend to have 16 times the HP of Bears in Kalimdor and yet... It's honestly maddening. And yeah. Having multiple Scales would be almost like having 2-3 zones at every level range with different storylines going on in each of them that ascribe to different narrative scales... Huh. Which... City of Heroes kind of already -does-... When you go to Talos Island over Independent Port you're choosing more Magical rather than Science storylines. What if instead of that, you made it 'Big' and 'Small' scales? Just make some of the zones 'Big Scale Stories' and some of the zones 'Small Scale Stories' and let people wander around wherever they like. Make it a Smorgasbord of Content where you get to pick and choose what you do all the way through leveling. No need to "Scale Lock" characters. After all, Batman helps Superman fight Darkseid and then goes back to Gotham and nearly gets killed by a dude in a Green Jacket who asks silly questions. Level 50 (or 40, or 200, or whatever) is still the same power between characters. I get that it has to be that way and I'm never going to dispute it. No point in disputing it. But level 50 doesn't have to mean "Cosmic Hero" or even "World Class Hero" if the narrative doesn't -force- it to do so.

Allow me to repeat myself: And, again, I'm not trying to be the "Sole Narrator" of CoH1. I've said, -time and again- that I'd do the multiple scales narrative as part of a CoH2 if I were a part of designing it 'cause it would allow for more character and narrative variety than CoH currently does. For this game and the problem presented: A simple 'Yes/No' flag on Incarnate Drops added to the P2W vendor seems like the best solution. Low investment, low impact to the community, high impact to those who want it. As I've also said, repeatedly.

Sure. Which is why I suggest having a bunch of different stories to tell. After all, Batman can hang with the high end of the Justice League but also goes right back to Gotham to nearly get killed by the Joker or some themed Doctor-Criminal with a gun or a bomb or a plant every other week. Because in Comics it's not a one way street of the superhero getting more powerful until nothing 'Street Level' can oppose them. Certain stories go that way, obviously. But not -all- of them. Batman and Spider-Man don't face the DBZ problem where their power has to continually grow to beat ever increasing threats 'til they're blowing up planets when they get the broccoli farts. Which is why the best possible CoH2 would include the idea of Narrative Scale from Day 1 'til Sundown. But for City as it is I think the best solution to the presented problem is the "No Incarnate Drops" P2W button. Just so the people who want to can choose to opt out. For the record: it's not a problem for me. I just incarnate out all my characters and ignore the narrative surrounding it, then re-write the narrative of missions I do for my Street Sweeper type heroes. Hell, I run "Hero in the Isles" concept characters where I roleplay with friends that we're all heroes and rewrite the mission narratives in the RP to support that claim, the CoV Writing team has no power over -me-! But I respect that Megajoule has a problem, here, and it seems to have an easy solution. So why not?

The point is to design a new playstyle. And no. That isn't a Blaster. The point of the armor toggles is passive damage mitigation, Vanden. I'm just suggesting it not be freaking perfect mitigation so we don't get another AT that stands in the middle of a pack of enemies punching them. Someone who creates aggro to keep their team safe while being dynamic instead of static. Someone who makes soft controls like Slows more relatively useful. Who makes HoT effects a better form of healing for the metagame of a given team. A tank type who pairs particularly well with Controllers and wouldn't be annoyed by knock back scattering the enemy group. Before getting fully IO'd and half their Incarnates a Blaster can't tank a +4×8 team and take the Alpha. The Instigator would, but would need to continually mitigate damage through distance while managing aggro as the fight continues to avoid getting surrounded or cornered and have to rely on their passive mitigation which ain't perfect to keep them safe from all the incoming damege. To me that's freaking cool. Why do you insist on being reductionist and negative about this? Actually, here: If we're gonna talk about the Instigator idea, let's do it in the Instigator thread so you can see the compiled idea in one spot instead of piecing it together through a series of posts. It's a lot more thought out than I think you realize.

Which is why their defensive values need to be capped off somewhat lower. Less HP than a Brute, Less Resistance than a Brute or a Tanker. Give 'em Sentinel Style defense sets so they don't even get the benefit from target-count power saturation. They also won't have PBAoE Damage Toggles for aggro generation! (Okay, Dark Armor gets their PBAoE control toggles, still, but think of how squishy Dark Armor is in general!) That way they can't -stay- in melee, taking every attack that enemies fire off, and -have- to move around to avoid getting overwhelmed. Move in to make attacks from your chain, move out to make ranged attacks and limit incoming DPS, bouncy-bouncy fun fun fun! Generate as much aggro as possible to keep your squishie(r)s safe... Meanwhile Scrappers, Brutes, and Tankers just stand stock still hitting things 'til they fall over. Moving during a fight only while grumbling about the Peacebringer's Knockback. At max level, or with a team of buffers and healers, they might be able to play like Brutes and Tankers and anyone else who caps all their defensive abilities... but that's the same with EVERY Archetype so it's really not something to be too worried about. At least: That's how -I'd- do it.

And none of that matters 1 entire Damn if my narrative doesn't hold to their standards of power. If my "Street Level" heroes are PL 16 then my "World Heroes" are 18s and my "Cosmics" are 22s. Or I could make my Cosmics 16s and just run that story instead. The game facilitates the storytelling. It doesn't -force- you to follow the Developer's recommendations on how strong different characters or concepts are. Mainly 'cause how many power points you spends means nothing if the enemies are at the same level of power. Again, I'll point you to Paladin and Jurassik, Deathsurge and Rularuu. All are "Giant Monsters". Your level 50 Incarnate IOd out superbad "Cosmic Superhero" character hits Paladin like you're level 19. Your Judgement? Hits like you're level 19. All your high tier attack powers? Like you're level 19. Meanwhile he hits you like he's level 50. He's not a Cosmic entity here to destroy our world. He's a big psychic clockwork manipulated by a guy who got beat near to death by a Superhero Cop. The Joker, Batman, Superman. All of them hit Paladin just as hard, regardless of their "PL" Now stop trying to use Mutants and Masterminds to justify City of Heroes. Not only is it an apples to oranges situation it's also people trying to put DC's characters into a system they weren't created with. It's always going to be a Square Peg Round Hole situation at best.

Narratively Rularuu is a cosmic entity. Doesn't matter where you fight him, he's still going to eat our reality. But a character like, say, Paladin is not a Cosmic Entity. It's a giant Clockwork. Mechanically they both con Purple regardless of your level. They both function by the same rules of Giant Monsters. Narratively they're wholly different beings for how dangerous they are and what their goals/existence is. Paladin is a scary robot that terrorizes Kings Row once in a while, while Rularuu wants to get out of the Shadow Shard and eat our whole reality. But they're both 'Just Giant Monsters' as far as game mechanics go. You're level 50 with 4 level shifts and Tier 4 everystuff and IO sets to hell and back? Paladin STILL cons purple to you. Even though 10 level 20 characters beat him the last time he spawned, you're not going to be able to Thanos Snap him out of existence with all your Incarnate abilities. (You'll still beat him if you're built really well, but it's not going to be a 10 second fight) Game Mechanics do not -have to- define the narrative.

Game Mechanics don't have to define the story. I could develop a M&M game where Superheroes have 150 Power Points to spend on their characters and put them against appropriate challenges and limit the narrative to one city or one neighborhood of a city. Maybe all their adventures happen only in Brooklyn New York. Guess what? They're Street-Level Heroes. If I turn around and have those players make 150pp characters and then tell a sweeping cosmic narrative where they're piloting starships and fighting aliens, they're cosmic heroes. Even with the same power point costs. Narrative does not have to be tied to game mechanics, instead game mechanics can support the narrative.

The Tanker/Brute thing is a big problem. Right now, Brutes can have about as much overall durability as a Tanker but dish out -way- more damage. But knowing that's a thing, we can make sure the Instigator -can't- get quite as much durability as a Tanker. Maybe cap their Resistances at 75% and give them HP closer to a Scrapper so that even if they do get Softcap Defense the shots that do slip by are -REALLY DANGEROUS- to ensure they don't just hang out in melee and play like a Tanker or Brute. It won't -fix- things for Tanker/Brute, but it doesn't need to make it worse!

Definitely not a 'Defining Feature' of any given comic book archetype. I'll give you that. But, honestly, none of the archetypes as presented in City of Heroes actually line up with Comic Book characters perfectly... At least until you add in some powersets. But Captain Marvel, Nova, and soooo many other characters fit an "Energy Assault" powerset just beautifully, but don't fit a single Control Powerset at -all-. Instead it would make more sense to give them a Defense Secondary. Similarly, there's a lot of "Fire Assault" and "Ice Assault" characters who use elemental powers in every situation. And let's not forget characters like Ghost Rider or Spawn who will lash you with flaming chains and then punch you with skeletal, or metal-reinforced, fists in melee. When you really look at Comics -hard-, Assault style characters appear a whole heck of a lot more often than 'Dominator' characters.

"Melee Focused Twin" Would be a Scrapper. An Instigator would be more of a split between Melee and Ranged and, personally, I'd prefer they had inherent Taunts in their attacks to make them into aggro managers who use Sentinel defense values and thus can't just hang out in melee. Spider-Man. Ranged attacks, melee, and defensive capabilities. Captain Marvel: Same thing Shonen are fine and dandy, but come on! There's dozens of comic book heroes that use their powers at range and in melee, mixing it up based on their needs and their enemies.

As someone who LOVES KM at all levels (But particularly at high levels) I have to say it would pair pretty well with Radiation Armor... -initially-. I say initially because the Repulsing Torrent power, while solo, can help make Alphas easier to eat. Radiation is a self-healing set, which is great, but it means Alphas can be rough. But a lot of people feel like the set is too slow-paced for what it gives you and I really can't fault them for that opinion (Smashing and Energy are ridiculously resisted in the end-game) I've played SS to 50 and it was a blast. Could never get into TW. I think SS might be your best bet unless you're willing to mess with Street Justice which is -also- a lot of fun but gets more engaging animations, for my money.

I'd rather see a separate Assault/Defense Archetype created (And even suggested one in the Instigator as a new Tanky-Type character) But I'd still love to see this.

Oh my god. Seriously? Just let it go. The point is that not every "Street Level Hero" gets to arrest Nemesis or any other "Kingpin of Crime" character 'cause they're not written for Street Level Heroes to fight. They're written for every character to start out punching gangbangers on the streets and grow in power 'til they can tangle with the biggest and the baddest characters in the game. You can write your own reasons for your own character to be able to ignore the massive disparity between "Thug with a gun" and "Superstrong Supervillain" but that doesn't mean everyone feels comfortable ignoring that disparity. The fact that the Batman V Superman argument is still going strong after 40 something years (Not to mention Superman v Goku, -jesus-...) is perhaps the single greatest indicator of that. And if City of Heroes were a better game than it is (And it's already a pretty freaking great game) it would acknowledge that disparity in the writing by continuing the "Multiple Paths Through Leveling" trend all the way up to the End-Game by including end-game storylines that don't rely on your character being able to punch out supervillains empowered by freaking GODS. Does that mean I want the current Devs to rewrite the incarnate arcs? Hell no. Does that mean I'm going to ask the current devs to redesign the incarnate system? Hell no. Does that mean I want the current devs to consider a wider variety of power-levels in continuing content? Sure, who the hell does that harm? But maybe, -just maybe-, for some players it might be worthwhile to have a P2W Vendor Flag that disables Incarnate Drops the same way as any other drops get flagged in the system that -already exists-. You don't have to use it, -obviously-. But for them it might be better than constantly getting 'INCARNATE SHARD BONDED' in the middle of their screen.

Nazi Statesman doesn't get beaten when you show him a green rock.

Can't be done. The bartender is part of the game world. They'd have to remove the barkeep for every server or no server. That said, moving her off to the side would work great.

For literal years. Take a look at the three encounters you can fight him on, Heroside, and tell me which one fits street level heroes and involves arresting the dude: 1) Going to an alternate reality created by the Midnight Squad to destroy his base in the Shadow Shard, Prison for Rularuu the cosmic entity who wants to destroy our world who got imprisoned in the 60s. 2) Save the world during the Rikti War arc which, by the way, involves fighting Hero1 himself and generally SAVING THE WORLD AS IT SAYS ON THE TIN. 3) Dealing with Nazi-Alternate-Reality freaking STATESMAN as a superheroic top tier fight. 'Cause, y'know, nothing says "Street Level Kingpin" like only being found in a bunch of Cosmic Level Storyarcs. Don't be insulting, Darkgob. It's not conducive to conversation or constructive at all.

Oh, absolutely! If you're writing. But if you're in a shared world with other people who did the writing before you ever arrived then you are limited by that world's writing. As PaxArcana noted previously I could just stop playing the game after a certain point, or only play it within certain limitations. I could also rewrite the narrative for my personal character however I wanted to do it. But as far as everyone else is concerned my character is still in incarnate chosen by The Well of Furies. My fire blast still does fire damage instead of hellfire damage. Etc. It's up to the writer of the world to create the structures that we exist within and in many cases strain against.

Why not have all three? therein lies the conundrum that I'm having here is that no one understands that you can have more than one. You can have more than three! If you wanted to create a national level hero or some similar thing that would be cool, too! But they would all kind of have to be built for from day one.

One more time... This is in regards to a hypothetical City of Heroes 2. In such a game you could design this stuff from the ground up to accommodate different concepts while learning from the mistakes that City of Heroes made. Nemesis being behind everything is a great meme! But until I can arrest him it doesn't really mean a thing. It's the Xanatos Gambit which works great in TV shows for kids but terribly in video games. Meanwhile I can punch both Nazi and Conflicted Emperor versions of Statesman... And used to punch real Statesman and can even punch a Statesman Stunt Double...

Personally I just like to see more endgame content that isn't fighting off Rularuu or Hamidon or whatever. Lemme fight against the Family and Tsoo and such, just on a grander scale. Introduce some Kingpin style characters who are trying to manipulate the whole city, make Supervillain freaks like Rhino, and who are overall presented as real threats. if you're going to have an incarnate system for characters it needs to be accessible to all of them, though. Maybe introduce different ways to opt into the system. They could have used origins for that with magic people getting super awesome spells and mutants exposing themselves to something that mutates them further without it all being tied to Greco-Roman myth in a singular narrative that excludes all variation. Same drops, same recipes, same crafting method, different narrative.

One more note? I was not suggesting the devs rewrite this game with that post. You actually cut out the part where I was commenting that in a perfect City of Heroes 2 such narrative distinctions would be included and then you suggested to me, like I was some kind of idiot, that I should just turn off XP at level 15 to 20. which is also hilarious in the fact that it would be more appropriate to cut off the XP somewhere around level 36 when you're still fighting the warriors and the tsoo who are both very street-level enemy groups... I mean the character I used in the example was Daredevil and you're basically suggesting barely getting high enough in level to fight The Hand or a gang from a 1970s movie. Quite humorous in retrospect!

You completely misunderstood my statement... You can have two level 50 characters who represent completely different levels of super heroing by having street thugs that go all the way up to level 50 for the "street-level hero" to fight rather than just having a whole bunch of aliens and super psychics at max level. I'm not talking about the individual power level as regards game mechanics I'm referring to narrative power level. how's the game world describes your strength compared to the strength of another character or to the world itself. A level 50 blaster will have their tier 9 nuke whether they are street level or cosmic, it's just the story that would be different. And yes having multiple endgame scenarios is possible! It just means doing different writing. kind of like the entirety of City of Heroes but it's multiple different zones which have different storylines in them. You just have some storylines stay street-level and some storylines go cosmic. Hell you could start the game with cosmic storylines and instead of Atlas Park have Atlas station where your cosmic heroes are working for alien cops beating up whatever street gang works on the space station. The game has different story lines for people who follow magic tech science mutants and natural enemies. Just carry that forward into cosmic and local I guess would be the easiest way to describe it. As to the end game system itself using incarnate threads and such? Do that same system for the street level hero and just change the writing so that it's not about The Well of Furies picking the biggest and the baddest. Let them take that secret stuff twosome scientist who explains it all in more human terms and helps them to build stuff for their powers. It is all dependent on what the studio decides to do with their time... They decided to handle the entire game as an advancement from street level to cosmic while acknowledging character origins as one of five things, when instead they could have gone from low-level to high-level while instead of acknowledging characters motivations or relative power levels or any number of other things. In short: levels are in abstraction of advancement for game mechanic purposes but do not automatically have to define the story being told. I apologize for the grammatical errors and random misplaced words, I'm on my cell phone at work using speech to text and it sucks.